Quiberon Bay 2

1759

The Battle of Quiberon Bay was a decisive naval engagement fought on 20 November 1759 during the Seven Years' War between the Royal Navy and the French Navy.

It was fought in Quiberon Bay, off the coast of France near St. Nazaire. The battle was the culmination of British efforts to eliminate French naval superiority, which could have given the French the ability to carry out their planned invasion of Great Britain. A British fleet of 24 ships of the line under Sir Edward Hawke tracked down and engaged a French fleet of 21 ships of the line under Marshal de Conflans. After hard fighting, the British fleet sank or ran aground six ships, captured one and scattered the rest, giving the Royal Navy one of its greatest victories, and ending the threat of French invasion for good.

The power of the French fleet was broken, and would not recover before the war was over; in the words of Alfred Thayer Mahan...
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"The battle of 20 November 1759 was the Trafalgar of this war, and the English fleets were now free to act against the colonies of France, and later of Spain, on a grander scale than ever before".

For instance, the French could not follow up their victory at the land Battle of Sainte-Foy in what is now Canada in 1760 for want of reinforcements and supplies from France, and so Quiberon Bay may be regarded as the battle that determined the fate of New France and hence Canada. Hawke's commission was extended and followed by a peerage (allowing him and his heirs to speak in the House of Lords) in 1776.

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France experienced a credit crunch as financiers recognised that Britain could now strike at will against French trade. The French government was forced to default on its debt.